Wednesday, November 30, 2016

The Carlyle Group is exploring a sale of Brintons', the storied British carpet maker. Carlyle hired William Blair to auction Brintons' five years after acquiring it for £38 million out of liquidation. The story did not say how Carlyle put Brintons' in liquidation by buying company debt on the cheap. The Brintons' family leveled about their unfair treatment by Carlyle.

Rather than buying the family's equity stake, Carlyle bought the
company's debt (at a discount to its face value, no doubt). Once they
had acquired the debt Carlyle then used a controversial pre-pack
administration to seize control – placing the carpet-maker into
administration, then buying it straight back.

By using a pre-pack to acquire the business, Carlyle was able to
jettison Brintons' pension fund – complete with its £10.5m deficit.

I expect the family to be knotted and tufted about Carlyle's plans to get over £200 million from the sale. The sixty five Brintons' employees laid off in February 2016 might be frosted about Carlyle's huge payday after theirs was eliminated.

Carlyle dumped Brintons' pension responsibility on the public Pension Protection Fund. How much will they get from Carlyle's monstrous profits on Brintons' sale? Nothing, nada, zippo. Auctioneer William Blair will get more than the Pension Protection Fund.

Carlyle promotes how they are the solution for underfunded pensions. Just not Brintons', a five year PEU bled affiliate.

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein's does God's work. Thus, private equity underwriters (PEU) must have a similar striving. Seraphim Capital is a UK based private equity firm that recently launched a Space Fund to profit from the heavens. Seraphim are six winged creatures that praise God on his throne.

One Seraphim Managing Director also is cofounder and CEO of Angel Capital. That's a second bit of name data supporting a holy alignment.

It's hard to be heavenly with agnostic capital. Dang! This PEU almost passed the third test and joined the Lloyd Blankfein "I can take it with me" Club.

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

“Right now in Washington nobody cares about the debt,” Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein
said at the SuperInvestor private equity conference in Amsterdam. “We
have $20 trillion of debt and people say, ‘OK, $20 trillion, $22
trillion, $23 trillion—what difference does a couple of trillion make?’”

Mr.
Rubenstein said he didn’t share concerns voiced by many since the
election that Mr. Trump’s economic policies could fuel inflation. He
pointed out that the inflation rate has remained near historic lows for
years.

“I don’t expect there will be a lot of constraints on private equity
going forward,” Mr. Rubenstein said. “I don’t think it’s going to be
adversely affected by President Trump or his administration.”

As I've said before "Politicians Red and Blue love PEU." The billionaire class loves its representative elect. The tax cuts are coming, the tax cuts are coming.

President elect Donald Trump announced his nomination for Center for Medicare/Medicaid. Trump's Seema Verma helped design state healthcare policy like President Obama's Marilyn Tavenner. Tavenner refused to share a study on the future of healthcare in Virginia as it was privately funded. Verma helped design health policy for Indiana but her company worked for both sides, the state and HP, a giant Medicaid contractor for the state. IndyStarreported:

For more than a decade, the little-known private consultant has
quietly shaped much of Indiana's public health-care policy. The state
has paid her millions of dollars for her work — amid a potential
conflict of interest that ethics experts say should concern taxpayers.

Largely
invisible to the public, Verma's work has included the design of the
Healthy Indiana Plan, a consumer-driven insurance program for low-income
Hoosiers now being touted nationally as an alternative to Obamacare. In
all, Verma and her small consulting firm, SVC Inc., have received more
than $3.5 million in state contracts.

At the same time, Verma has
worked for one of the state's largest Medicaid vendors — a division of
Silicon Valley tech giant Hewlett-Packard. That company agreed to pay
Verma more than $1 million and has landed more than $500 million in
state contracts during her tenure as Indiana's go-to health-care
consultant, according to documents obtained by The Indianapolis Star.

Verma's
dual roles raise an important question: Who is she working for when she
advises the state on how to spend billions of dollars in Medicaid funds
— Hoosier taxpayers or one of the state's largest contractors?

In
a written statement, Verma said unequivocally that she played no role
in HP's contracts with the state. "SVC has disclosed to both HP and the
state the relationship with the other to be transparent," Verma said.
"If any issue between HP and the state presented a conflict between the
two, I recused myself from the process."

But the recently ousted
head of the state agency administering Verma's contract told The Star
that Verma once attempted to negotiate with state officials on behalf of
Hewlett-Packard, while also being paid by the state.

HP said it
can find no one in its company with any recollection of such a meeting.
Verma declined to answer further questions about her work with the state
or HP.

Verma's dual roles have surprised some leading Republican
lawmakers and expose one of many loopholes in Indiana's government
ethics laws. Government ethics experts told the Star the arrangement presented a conflict of interest.

Obama's health reformer Nancy-Ann DeParle received private equity distributions from the sale of healthcare companies while serving the public. This after all conflicting assets were disposed.

One cannot serve two masters. Arthur Anderson showed that consulting and public accounting don't mix.

Of course in a Trump administration there is only one master. His name is Donald.

Saturday, November 26, 2016

PEUReport has long relied on a number of blogs for information and research not available on mainstream media sources. Recently, a brand new organization Propornot called a number of these reliable sites "Russian Propaganda." Propornot's researchers did not reveal their identities or their methods.

I was struck by the implicit duality of Propornot, basically "he who is not with me is against me." American democracy encompasses a wide range of ideas and a political election campaign should cover the continuum of economic, political, scientific, spiritual thought and incorporate countless other dimensions of human existence.

Why is there a need to collapse thinking into "Russian propaganda"? Because one narcissist won the election and the other lost. Narcissists are never responsible for the ill things other people impose on them, robbing them of their birthright and natural greatness.

Hillary Clinton tried hard. Despite the help of Alphabet/Google's Eric Schmidt Hillary did not win the election as designed by our Founding Fathers. The great Google technological advantage was undone. How could this be?

Propornot reduced a number of respected websites to Russian propogandizers. Propornot is even offering a Google Chrome browser tool to help citizen's identify "Russians are coming" websites.

Does anyone else find it odd that Google's browser stood ready to identify Russian propogandists so quickly after the election, one where its Chairman chose sides and supported startup Timshel. Timshel shows a 2016 copyright date and its first blogpost came in February 2016. I could find no relationship between Timshel and Propornot, but it's hard to research an organization with no identified parties.

The following is solely my opinion. I believe Propornot is a logical fallacy, "post hoc, ergo prompter hoc." After this, therefore because of this. Hillary Clinton lost the election, therefore it was caused by Russian propogandists. This allows the Blue Team to avoid any critical examination of their several decade embrace of monied, power interests to the detriment of the common person.

Propornot shows the harm that can be inflicted with "big data" that implies relationship but fails to show causation. Propornot's loose assertions would not result in an arrest, much less a conviction. But this is the court of public opinion and frequently the bar is low.

The Washington Post - Propornot linkup points to group think that emanates from a central source, be it the winning political team, the losing team's techies wanting to massage the ego of their vanquished champion and/or a whittled down corporate media intent on disparaging those doing what they won't, look behind the political public curtain.

Thirty anonymous schleps wouldn't get this much free media attention from a storied newspaper. Rest assured insiders are behind Propornot and they don't care about free speech or democracy. They have a narrative to push and it's a divide and conquer duality. Rise above and read.

Statement:PEUReport is an anonymous opinion blogger that utilizes research and management theory to expose the scourge of private equity which preys directly and indirectly on the common person. It's no accident that wages and benefits have stagnated or declined as private equity became ubiquitous and conjoined with our Red and Blue political elite. As an anonymous blogger I have no expectation that WaPo would ever run anything I've found, much less take it carte blanche.

Update 12-1-16:Wall Street on Parade has their own theory about Propornot. They note the WaPo author is the Technology reporter who interviewed Google's Eric Schmidt in 2014. Schmidt ran the Hillary campaign's technology strategy. My cognitive dissonance theory is a step further. It could be an error or an idea whose time is yet to come.

Update 12-2-16: The House introduced a bill aimed at Russian propaganda websites. This supports my statement in the above post re: group think from a central source. Another support: News media and intelligence agencies blame Russia for Trump's presidential win.

Update 12-8-16: Hillary came out forcefully against "an epidemic of fake news."

Update 12-15-16: The Russians are coming meme exploded across mainstream media outlets. The DailyMail bothered to interview a recipient of the leaked Podesta e-mails and he claims it came from a Blue team whistleblower. That's a far cry from a Ruskie submarine drop.

Friday, November 25, 2016

And
President elect Trump's victory has the financial markets seeing
green. Relax. Life is good. Any parallels to 2007/2008 are clearly the work of negative and cynical people who hate life. Ignore anyone who refers you to a Forbes retrospective which stated:

Fast forward to the financial meltdown of 2008 and what did we see?
America again was celebrating. The economy was booming. Everyone seemed
to be getting wealthier....

And then the wheels fell off the economic engine as it careened down Debt Mountain and bounced through Risk Gulch. It can't happen again. Surely, our leaders have instituted safeguards for more than themselves.

The greed and leverage boys, PEUs and Wall Street, only want to
help the common man with their retirement needs. Their products and financial machinations are
completely safe.

One can only vote for change and hope. The rest is in their capable hands. Ignore naysayers and Russian propagandists who suggest our leaders are capable of greed, influence peddling, evisceration and revenge. It's party time! Borrow, buy for there is no day of reckoning.

Confession: This post is either completely sarcastic or intended to keepPEUReport off the WaPo fake news list. I report, you decide!

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Joe Biden arrived at Nantucket Memorial Airport on Air Force Two just
after 7 p.m. Tuesday night, for his last Thanksgiving holiday on the
island as vice president. The Bidens are likely staying at the Abram's Point compound of Carlyle
Group co-founder and prominent Washington, D.C. philanthropist David
Rubenstein, as they did in 2014.

Will Biden do the Turkey plunge again before dining on turkey dinner at the Carlyle compound? Gobble, gobble. The greed and leverage boys know well how to fatten up from government insider connections.

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Three candidates have been mentioned as possible Energy Secretaries under President elect Donald Trump, but only Bob Grady is a private equity underwriter (PEU). Grady is currently with Gryphon Investors after spending nine years with The Carlyle Group. Fortune reported:

At Carlyle, Grady focused most of his time running the firm’s venture
capital investment program, which raised several funds. The last of
those was in 2006, after which the group eventually morphed into a
growth capital business before being shut down completely. Grady would
transition into a regulatory role for Carlyle in late 2008, before
leaving the firm the following summer to join a Wyoming-based investment
firm called Cheyenne Capital.

Gryphon's website had this to say about Grady:

Bob is a Partner and joined Gryphon in 2015 to head Gryphon’s General
Industries Group and is responsible for leading the origination,
monitoring and growth of portfolio investments and for managing the
group. Bob has over two decades of private equity experience, and is a
member of Gryphon’s Investment Review Committee.

The Carlyle Group asked for public subsidies for natural gas power generation in California and for nuclear energy. We'll see if an ex-Carlyle Group managing director Bob Grady gets the opportunity to support his fellow PEUs with their energy investments.

President-elect
Donald Trump will meet on Sunday with billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, a
possible candidate for commerce secretary in the new administration, a
spokesman for Trump's transition team said on Saturday.

SkyNews revealed earlier this week that Ross surprised Virgin Money by selling all his 53.6 million shares. Their story closed with:

The 78-year old investment guru has specialised in restructuring
distressed industries and is known as the "King of Bankruptcy" for his
expertise in the field following an earlier career in investment
banking.

In March, 2004, the firm (WL Ross) organized International Textile Group
(“ITG”) by consolidating two bankrupt companies, Burlington Industries
and Cone Mills. Mr. Ross serves as Chairman of ITG which has developed
major investments in China and Mexico and is the most global American
company in its industry.

Ross led the exportation of U.S. jobs as a PEU.

Also in 2004, WL Ross organized International Coal Group to
acquire out of bankruptcy three coal companies. In 2011, ICG was sold
to Arch Coal for $3.4 billion.

One of those three coal companies operated the Sago Mine which exploded in January 2006 killing 12 miners. Ross' ICG purchased Sago's owner in November 2005. 2005 was a bad year for new private equity owned companies. The Carlyle Group's LifeCare Hospitals had 26 patient deaths in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Ross is a man of many PEU awards. He's led the disequilibrium where executives profit massively while workers struggle. Ross sent jobs away from our shores. He's personally benefited from preferred :PEU taxation via carried interest. Ross is more of the same, expressly what many disaffected citizens voted against.

There are words for campaigns that motivate people to the ballot box. Often they bear no relationship to actual governing or policy. A "King of Bankruptcy" Ross Commerce Department appointment fits that pattern.

WSJannounced a new private equity underwriter (PEU) this week. It's the Inkwell Group.

Their press release stated:

The Inkwell Group, LLC, a new private equity firm, has launched with a
distinctive strategy to leverage the proven power of racial and gender
diversity to enhance business performance and build value.

The Inkwell Group seeks to enhance lower middle-market companies through
the addition of diverse executive and boardroom leadership.

The Inkwell logo has a strong resemblance to another Washington, D.C. based private equity underwriter (PEU)

The Carlyle Group has offices on Pennsylvania Avenue. The Inkwell Group is on K Street. Need I say more?

It's hard to throw a rock in our nation's capital and not hit a PEU or a member of the political team they support. As the Red Team ushers in their spate of PEU political appointees the Blue Team doubled down with their appointment of Senator Chuck Schumer, a longtime private equity/Wall Street water carrier, as Senate Minority Leader.

The Inkwell Group is a sign of our greed and leverage times. The method for serious moneymaking is truly bipartisan. Elections determine which team gets to stack the deck in favor of their PEU donors.

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

President elect Donald Trump's transition team already floated two private equity underwriters (PEU) as possible Treasury and Commerce Department cabinet members come January 2017. Billionaire PEU Wilbur Ross could take the top Commerce spot. Ross' ICG owned the Sago Mine where 12 miners died in a Jan. 2, 2006 methane gas explosion. PEU Ross is 78 years old and still growing his billions in assets.

Ross invested in distressed banks after the financial crisis and those deals received $6 billion in FDIC subsidies. A Bloomberg article on Ross's bank acquisitions had one Ross admirer bragging:

"He’s one of the best bottom feeders in the business!"

Trump's Treasury Chief could make the same claim as Steven Mnuchin's Dune Capital Management rode FDIC subsidies to massive profits on IndyMac bank, renamed OneWest Bank. Two men who rode public money to greater riches could soon be overseeing your tax dollars. Rest assured funds will be steered to their PEU brethren, not the economically frustrated common man who put their boss in office.

It's the Red Team's turn to use the White House as a money funnel to connected friends. Disrupt a few industries, telegraph a few swamp drains so new bottom feeders can make billions. They might express their appreciation by donating to the Red Team.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

CCMP Capital will sell LHP Hospital Group and its five hospitals to Ardent Health Services, another privately owned for-profit healthcare company. After the deal Ardent will own nineteen hospitals in six states. James D. "Denny" Shelton chairs the board of LHP Hospital Group and is senior advisor to CCMP Capital. It's not unusual for a private equity underwriter (PEU) to be a Senior Advisor and Board Chair of an affiliate.

Shelton worked alongside Nancy-Ann DeParle at CCMP Capital. DeParle
left to Become President Obama's health reformer. Despite divesting all
conflicting assets Nancy-Ann received a payout from CCMP's sale of
MedQuest while working in the White House.

Nashville based private equity underwriter Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe monetized its longstanding investment in Ardent for $1.825 billion in April 2015. WCAS employs Bush Medicare Prescription Drug creator Tom Scully. It's not clear how much Tom made from WCAS flipping Ardent. It's two new owners are Chicago-based real estate investment trust Ventas and Equity Group Investments. One is a PEU, while the other caters to private equity affiliates looking to monetize their real estate..

Five months before announcing the deal for LHP Hospital Group Ventas named James D. "Denny" Shelton as its Independent Presiding Director. Shelton served on Ventas board since 2008 and controls nearly 24,500 shares of company stock, worth $1.4 million as of Friday's closing price of $58.75.

I'm not sure how the Presiding Independent Director can navigate the purchase of a company he helped found and failed to mention in his public board biographies. Bloomberg listed Shelton's affiliation with LHP Hospital Group, but not his board chairmanship.

Consider Ventas Chair and CEO description of the deal in their recent earnings call with Wall Street analysts:

Last year during the third quarter we closed our
acquisition of Ardent's hospital real estate and articulated a vision
for building formidable, high quality hospital business in this large,
dynamic space. We chose Ardent as our beachhead investment because it is
a winner and potential consolidator with its good hospitals,
significant market presence, attractive payer mix, good quality of care
and strong margin.

We also design the growth strategy that focus on scaling
Ardent's experience management team and strong infrastructure. At that
time, we identified some desirable acquisition target and Legacy Hospital Partners or LHP who's at the top of the list because it shared
these desirable characteristic. We are now happy to say that Ardent has
inked a deal to acquire LHP just like we drew it up on the board.

As healthcare premier capital provider, Ventas is
fueling Ardent's growth by providing a $700 million secured loan
enabling Ardent to acquire LHP. This deal is attractive both financially
and strategically for all Ardent partners and shows our continued
ability to align with market leaders to support their growth.

Financially, the loan will be accretive to Ventas' 2017 earnings with a going in floating interest rate of approximately 8%.

Just like we drew it up on the board, the one with Denny Shelton presiding independent director and chairman of LHP Hospital Group. Denny is on both sides of this deal and surely no longer independent.

PEUs buy companies and spin off the real estate, usually requiring a more expensive lease arrangement. Ventas CEO spoke to capital costs for LHP Hospitals in the earnings call.

And so it is a real gem and in terms of we are looking at 2017 expected
performance. And I'll tell you that LHP now is borrowing in the 4s.

LHP will pay double that Ventas, the 8s. No wonder healthcare costs are killing the average person.

Another political heavyweight sits on Ventas board of directors, Melody Barnes. Her Ventas board tenure began in 2014. Barnes' speaker bio states:

Melody Barnes served as assistant to the President and Director of
the White House Domestic Policy Council (DPC) from January 2009 until
January 2012. In that capacity, she provided strategic advice to
President Obama and worked closely with members of the Cabinet
coordinating the domestic policy agenda across the administration.

Under
Barnes’ leadership, innovative new policies, practices and partnerships
were initiated to address significant national challenges.

During Barnes’ tenure, the DPC began working with the Department of
Health and Human Services and the Department of Treasury to implement
the health care reform legislation, coordinated government-wide
implementation of critical new food safety executive actions and crafted
and began implementing the first comprehensive national strategy to
address the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Be clear that former government health reformers, DeParle, Scully and
Barnes, have been personally enriched from the system they helped
create. It favors for-profit healthcare and their PEU owners. LHP Hospital Group is but a window into this world.

Saturday, November 12, 2016

President elect Donald Trump's Transition Team will be led by a sixteen person executive committee, which is comprised of four relations (above in red) and three private equity underwriters (PEUs in blue). Add one daughter of a billionaire PEU and that's half of the leadership for the transition team.

Trump's children said they would not play any role in governing and their first act is to appoint those who will. Donald said their would be strict separation. How can this be?

Anyone who has worked for an overly egocentric boss knows their stance can change instantly. They shift because of their need to maintain their image in the present moment. That image has them as all knowing, all powerful and always right. It matters not that they said the very opposite just a few minutes before. Tell them that and they'll deny it. That's what they need to do to maintain their image in that very moment. Of course, it drives people around them insane.

Trump's handlers corralled him for the last ten days of the election as he employed the Reagan strategy. This level of containment cannot last for a man used to sharing his spontaneous greatness with the world.

Donald Trump will pivot, flip-flop, and do a 180 more than once. Each time he will act like his current position is the one he always had. He will not acknowledge he offered an opposing position in the past. His current thinking/stance will automatically be projected back in time while his greatness is ongoing and knows no bounds. Audiotape and film footage are irrelevant.

Donald Trump believe his greatness will make America great again. That would be nice, but along the way it may drive some people crazy. That starts with people who thought Donald's kids would have no role in governing.

Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote after Americans elected Donald Trump for President::

What happened in America Tuesday should
not be seen as a victory for hatefulness over decency. It is more accurately
understood as a repudiation of the American power structure.

At the core of that structure are the
political leaders of both parties, their political operatives, and fundraisers;
the major media, centered in New York and Washington DC; the country’s biggest
corporations, their top executives, and Washington lobbyists and trade
associations; the biggest Wall Street banks, their top officers, traders,
hedge-fund and private-equity managers, and their lackeys in Washington; and
the wealthy individuals who invest directly in politics.

Billionaire Trump deployed many of the same strategies as private equity underwriters (PEU) as a businessman. He leveraged affiliates, ramping up returns on equity, when he successfully flipped them. For those that declined in value bankruptcy often meant others lost more than the Donald. The past is often a predictor of the future.

Donald's handlers were able to keep him on point for the last ten days of the campaign and he returned to the plight of the common man. I believe Americans voted to make our country fair again. The American power structure has been imbalanced for decades. During that time wages stagnated or declined, people shouldered a greater portion of their healthcare and retirement expenses, and workers have watched management devolve as executives ensured their outsized incentive compensation was maximized at the expense of workers and customer. Donald did this a boss and businessman.

Oddly, Americans elected a man whose treated workers like an input. Employees know the class system exists in most American branded corporations. For many of us management language is just as devoid of content and backbone as the words politicians use to get elected. Donald talked to hurting Americans and promised salves and balms. He may patch a few but I'm afraid he'll bring far more new wounds than he heals.

The greed and leverage boys are advising Donald. One served as his campaign finance chair. They come from Cerberus, Invesco, Dune Capital Management, Colony Capital and Founders Fund. Peter Thiel, co-founder of Palantir which spies on Americans in a maximally intrusive way, is on President elect Trump's transition team.

Americans repudiated the insider influence brought by modern day robber barons, who've taken so much the last few decades there's been nothing extra for the average citizen. We did it by electing one of their more recalcitrant members, one they don't even trust. If someone were writing a script for a psychodrama, this would be it. Planning for the movie is about to unfold. A good name might be "Pivot to PEU."

Update 11-12-16: At least three members of the Trump transition executive committee will represent the greed and leverage boys. A fourth is a billionaire's daughter. The billionaire is co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies. It's looking up for Red Team PEUs.

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Businesswire reported Fitch Rating downgraded Carlyle Group and its affiliated entities: Highlights include

The downgrades reflect Fitch's belief that Carlyle will not be able to
generate sufficient FEBITDA momentum over the next 12 months to address
the firm's elevated leverage ratio. Fitch believes the delay in FEBITDA
expansion is being driven by outflows in the Claren Road funds, the sale
of Emerging Sovereign Group (ESG), the run-off of Diversified Global
Asset Management, and, to a lesser extent, elevated costs associated
with product development for the Global Market Strategies (GMS) segment.

Firm leverage remained elevated at 5.39x for the TTM ended Sept. 30,
2016, which is well above Fitch's 'BBB' category quantitative benchmark
for alternative IMs of 2.5x-4.0x. Fitch believes leverage is likely to
increase further in 2017 as FEBITDA is pressured by the continued
decline in the hedge fund business, , and higher fundraising costs as
the firm gears up for the next fundraising cycle, and to a lesser
extent, elevated expenses associated with product development in GMS.

Carlyle is a leading global alternative IM specializing in private
equity, real estate, energy, credit funds, and fund of funds. As of
Sept. 30, 2016, FAUM amounted to $123.8 billion and total AUM was $169.1
billion.

Thursday, November 3, 2016

Indiana Senator Evan Bayh retired from Congress in 2010 due to the toxic nature of hyper-partisan politics. If political discourse hasn't improved the last six years why does Evan Bayh want his old seat back? To protect the PEUs he's served, giant lobbying firm McGuire Woods and Apollo Global Management, one of the huge private equity underwriters sponsoring Bayh's return to Congress. Others include Bain Capital, The Carlyle Group and Eton Park Capital. They'd love to have Senator Evan back in power to block bills that rectify long term PEU preferred taxation.

Insider Architect of the Implosion

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